Why bother?

When 2013 finally rang in, I was both happy and relieved. 2012 was what some would call a disaster. It was so trying down to the last minute. On New Year’s Eve, my wife and I got invited to a New Year’s Eve bash. We were excited because this was the first time since we've been married that we were actually going out to celebrate the incoming year.

We spent a great day together and since it is winter, I felt the need to soak up the last day in our tub. I was relaxing while reading my book, when I suddenly heard a cry that chilled my bones. It was my wife and I immediately thought something had happened to one of our Westies. She ran into the bathroom yelling for me to get out and come to the family room in the basement…not the kind of thing you want to hear getting ready for an evening out. The ceiling was caving in due to the pressure that the water was putting on it, and then it let go – what a MESS!

Considering the fact that we closed our business after three years, having lost all of the money from our investors, and ours to boot, what a grand finale! So, the question, “why bother” comes to mind. Why bother with another business? Why bother going on? Why bother at all?

Well, in the words of a great man, “it’s not about the destination, but about the journey to the destination.” So, we walk on! This year, after countless attempts, we closed down MyWclub Canada. We started with this as a product and service center, we move to an automotive market, we returned to the product and service program, and we finally shut it down. And now, drum roll, we will be starting work on our latest project CarCompete.ca.

Will it be difficult - you bet. Will it succeed - we will try our best. Will we fail - if necessary. All of this is part of our growth. It is part of our short time here on earth. Does it create friction, hate, mistrust, and losses? Yes. However, it also brings closeness, understanding, experience, and love. Success is not always measured by the amount of money you made, you have, or you kept. In my opinion, success is measured by the journeys you have taken, that you continue to take, and that you will always take to reach your goal, no matter how hard, how long, or how far. The journey will eventually get you to where you want and need to be, and that is why we bother.

2013 will give us 365 days of starts on our journey. What you need to decide is when your journey will begin. All the best of luck, and if you need help, reach out, we will be here.

A thought for the holiday season...

According to the legend, a desert wanderer happened upon a spring of cool, crystal clear water. The water was so delightful; he decided to bring the king a sample of it. Barely quenching his own thirst, he filled his leather canteen and began his lengthy journey in the hot desert sun to the palace.

When he finally reached his destination, the water had become stale because of the old leather container in which it had been stored. The king graciously accepted the gift of his faithful subject. He tasted it with an expression of gratitude and delight, and the wanderer went his way with a joyful heart.

After he had gone, others in the king’s court tasted the putrid water and asked why the king has pretended to enjoy it. "Ah", responded the king, "it was not the water I tasted, but the spirit in which it was given.

Please remember during this particular time of the year, and in that spirit, help those who cannot help themselves. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!

Follow-up, the sequence

After writing, my last article on follow up, I realized that I had failed to give the sequence and timeline, so here it is. However, before we start I just want to mention once again how important it is to dedicate one day a week to refill your list of leads. Rule number 1 is all about this; never come home without a sale. The reason I say that is, if you are going to go out, you may as well make it worth your time, and, get as many business cards, introductions, referrals as possible while you are out there. This will refill your bucket of leads. So here it is (you may change the days of the week, I just find these to work the best),

Monday

Make calls; call the prospects that you sent an email to the previous week. Call the leads that you spoke to before about booking an appointment. Call the prospects that you did not get to see. Call the ones that you picked up their cards without them being there.  Call the ones that were referred to you. Call everybody that you need to call, because, today, that is what you do.

The price of gas today is outrageous, the time that it takes to travel is consuming, and the telephone is your friend. Most places that you go to still pick up the phone while you are standing there even though you travelled to be there in person. So, do the same thing, get on the phone. You can reach a lot more people, efficiently, and more cost effective with the phone.

Tuesday

You should have at least one appointment to go see, and, no matter what, talk to the people around there. First scenario, the person whom you had an appointment with is not there. Talk to the people that work there, ask them about neighboring businesses, who they are, who the managers or owners are. Scenario two, the person you are waiting for still hasn’t arrived, and hasn’t called. Tell the people that you are going to introduce yourself to the businesses around and come back in an hour, and to please mention this to the boss. Scenario three, the person is there, you present, try to close, and ask for referrals. In all of these cases, you got something, either more leads, referrals, or a sale.

Wednesday

Email day, send emails to the people you just met, the ones from the week before and the ones you have in your groups. Let’s talk about your groups. One day you realized that you had accumulated hundreds of business cards from all the visits you made, and you wondered what to do with them all, well here, it is. Take the pile of cards and group them by category, i.e. service, products, or both. Next take a look at those piles and see if you can further group them, i.e. computer sales, electronics, gadgets and so on can be together, then plumbers, heating supply, cooling and so on. Once you have these sorted out, create the groups you need, I use Outlook and make groups that contain 20, I find that this number works best when sending out-group mail. If you have more than 20, make a second group, i.e. plumbers 2 and so on.

Now, during the course of your day, you will most likely come across some interesting articles. Always think about your groups and keep these articles for your bi-monthly emails. You found a great article on this new plumbing device that helps consumers unclog their drains. So, take the article, send it to the plumbing group, tell them you would like their opinion, mention your company blog, site, FB pages and whatever else you have in your signature block. And of course add a line like, I will give you a call next week to see if we can get together.

Thursday

Another appointment day, look at Tuesday and repeat.

Friday

Another appointment day, try and schedule something in the morning, most owners or managers go home early Friday afternoons, and they do not focus well on what you have to say.

Weekend

Read, clip, and prepare your group emails. If this is your own company, or a career, you should always be thinking about these things. It’s not a job when you like what you do.

Next week, making use of today's technology to be better prepared and productive...

Let's talk follow up!

Yesterday I was out with one of our salespeople and I was shocked at some of the comments that business owners shared with us regarding their salespeople and follow up.

I have personally experienced this with the folks that I lease my vehicle from, however I didn’t know that it extended this far. Countless sales must be lost each year because of this. What is so scary about following up? Years ago, I read a great book by Frank Bettger titled; how I raised myself from failure to success in selling. I would highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to be successful in sales. Here are a few pointers to help you in the meantime:

1. Never, never go home without at least one sale
2. Never end your day without sending an email to the people who bought, those who you met, and those you did not meet but got their business cards
3. Always visit the businesses next door to the one you just sold, right after the sale
4. Do not count a re-visit sale for your sale of the day

Follow these simple yet disciplined rules and you will be guaranteed not only success, but prosperity.

 

News

Every morning, I go through the same routine. I check in with our CTO in Sao Paulo Brazil, I read my emails, respond to the ones I have to, and then I go to my Google News and see what's happening in the World and Canada. This morning's news titles looked a little like this:

• Charlie Hebdo row: Cartoons divide French press
• Recall of ground beef from XL Foods in Alberta expands
• Security forces ring rebel area in Damascus, arrest 100
• Viewpoints: Anti-Islam film and self-censorship
• India hit by national strike over economic reforms
• Israeli air strike kills two Palestinians in Gaza
• Majority of Canadians would pay cash to dodge tax: survey
• Paying more for less: Canada's shrinking living room Add to ...
• Study finds why antidepressants work better for some

As a matter of fact, I think this is the way it looks every morning, and I am starting to think that there is no "good news" anymore, unless of course you would consider this to be good news:

• iPhone 5 review
• Lindsay Lohan arrested in New York
• Air Canada to unveil low-cost carrier
• HTC, Microsoft unveil new Windows phones

However, at the end of the day it's all the same, with a different twist. So, in view of this, I decided to search Google for a site that actually printed good news, this is what I came up with:

• http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/
• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/good-news/
• http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/good-news/

So, there is some good news around the world, I guess it's just a little harder to find. For me, from now on, I would rather have a dose of good news in the morning to help me tackle my days, it makes me feel good, and tells me that "hope" is still the strongest motivator, have a great day!

The Cloud...

What is cloud computing? Many of us have heard about it, some of us use it (Icloud from Apple) however most of us are still in the dark as to what it is and how it can make our lives easier, yes. I said easier!

So what is cloud computing? Cloud computing is the use of computing resources (hardware and software) that are delivered as a service over a network (typically the Internet). The name comes from the use of a cloud-shaped symbol as an abstraction for the complex infrastructure it contains in system diagrams. Cloud computing entrusts remote services with a user's data, software and computation.

Now in layman terms. It's like a harddrive located on a network (just like your home network) on the Internet that you can use. Let's try this, if you have an IPhone, and an IPad, and you want to make sure that if you lose your data you can recover it, you can back-up your devices to ICloud. If you want to sync your IPad (make them the same, share pictures and other information) with your IPhone, use ICloud. So basically Apple provides you with the ability to store up to 5 Gb of information for free on their servers. If you don't have an IPad, IPhone or other Aplle device you have other options, like:
 These types of available storages offer a multitude of options. I personally use both of them, one for pleasure and one for business. Why? Let's say I wanted to share some pictures wtih someone, or let's just say I wanted access to some files no matter where I was. I would simply create an account with any of these companies, and start adding files, photos, books, musics or videos to the folders I created. And, if I wanted to share some of these items, I simply would create a shared folder and invite someone to share it with.

My daughter lives in Ireland, so, if I took a few pictures around the house with my IPhone, or camera and tried to send those via email...good luck! If you are talking pictures in hugh resolution most of them will be over 1Mb in size and therefore could be rejected by the ISP, or web mail like Yahoo. And, because of their size, you could only send one per email, what a task. So instead, I have SugarSync, and I asked my daughter to also get a SugarSync account, and I created a photo folder that we share. Now, since that folder resides on my desktop (or IPhone, IPad, Mac, or whatever you are using) I can upload pictures there pretty quickly and, SugarSync will upload those to my cloud storage, and, my daughter can then go to her desktop folder and see all the pictures. We can do the same with books, videos, music and more.

Imagine the possibilities! Now, let me also caution you, these new storage methods only work if the Internet works. So, for safety measures, if you have important documents, back them up locally on something that you can take with you. I use the 690 Gb transcend, tough as nails, portable, and army tested.

Have a great day in the cloud!

Are we heading in the right direction?

Let me ask you, what is the lifeblood of a strong country and a solid economy? If you said, big companies, big profits, solid banks, high profits on the stock market, and anything that resembles that, well in my opinion...you failed!

Small business is the lifeblood and the strength of any country, of any city, of any culture, period. So why are we not helping them? Take a look at the news, more precisely the business section, what do you see? RIM this, Apple that, Google, Microsoft, and so on. What about the small companies? Banks don't help them, the Government doesn't help them, the investment groups, very little, but yet all of us wonder how to kick-start the economy. All of us wonder, how can we create more jobs? Yet the answer is right there, staring us in the face, help your local small businesses, entrepreneurs and startups and see what happens.

There are so many things that as a country, a province and a city we can do, however the first thing we need to do is "stop kidding ourselves". I read the blogs, the comments, and absurdities that people are posting and writing, come on! Give your head a shake as my mother in law would say. Some of you are starting to sound like politicians, I see growth, BS, what you are seeing is an oasis. Take a close look, the light at the end of the tunnel is a train heading straight for you. DON'T think that I am being negative, that is the easy way of looking at it. I am one of the most positive people out there, however, I am also a realist, and the fact is that we are not helping our small businesses to grow, we are impeding their growth.

Don't be fooled by the Fed's and their funding proclamation! Don't be fooled by the provincial funding, these are political strategies geared at obtaining votes, not growth. We are presently dealing with much bigger problems then small business some would say. Things like "who is that person on our 100 dollar bill". Come on! Wake up Canada!

We have the ability to have the strongest country in the world, we have by far more natural resources than most countries, we have great people, strong ethics, and still we allow our Government to pretty well "dictate" how we will do things with our natural resources. The land, the resources use to belong to the people, now it belongs to the government. The government use to belong to the people, now apparently it belongs to people like Harper. And I continue to read things like, "I see vast improvements in many sectors", "I see the housing industry picking up"...really, really you see that?

I'm sorry for bursting you bubbles, but folks, wake up, take a look around, and if you want an economy that is strong, support your local businesses, your start-ups, your entrepreneurs, and your small businesses. It's a weird thing that happens when you do that...they start growing, they create jobs, money flows in the economy, people buy things and yes, we grow as a city, a province, and a country.